We live in an age of instant video communication where individuals can access information in seconds, and communicate with each other in the remotest parts of the planet. Virtually everyone you pass on the street is carrying or wearing at least one electronic device capable of accessing almost unlimited communication. There are now segments of our population, younger people mostly, for whom a cell phone is their primary means of getting information.
With all of that, it's frustrating to observe that few Americans have a clue about their politics, and can answer a simple question about the administration of President Joe Biden. What people believe about the economy and the state of the union is nothing close to reality. And that's not because they are choosing to believe fiction over fact, it's because they just don't know the facts.
We have had the longest stretch of sustained job growth and low unemployment through the single term of a President in something like five decades. Every month he's been in office, there's been reported job growth, and in most months, it has exceeded expectations. The stock market has been setting monumentally high records all through his entire term, with very few re-adjustments and set backs, and is now in record territory, where it will be when Biden's term is over. GNP has sustained growth through the entire four years he's been in office, strong, consistent stead growth and I believe the numbers on wage growth are also better than any Presidential administration going all the way back to Lyndon Johnson.
Like most other developed countries, the United States was hit with a wave of global inflation. It started in other world economies before reaching hear, so it was not due to anything the President had done as far as our economy was concerned. It was largely related to re-expansion following the COVID pandemic. The President told us it would be a long stretch, and there were no easy fixes, but they took action which did two things. One, the impact was much less on the American people than it was on most of the rest of the world. Two, the steps taken to managing it did indeed bring it under control and down to normal levels, as he said it would do, and their management of it did not lead to a recesession. The US economy is not in recession at all, not even close to it. That silenced a lot of economic experts.
But few people will respond to questions about this economy with the correct answers. A majority of voters believe we are in a recession, likely not even knowing what that is, in spite of the exact opposite being the case. People think the stock market is crashing. They think unemployment is high and they think they're making less money because of inflation.
In addition to this, there's a long list of legislative accomplishments the Biden administration achieved, including getting a much needed infrastructure bill passed which created jobs and which actually increased the revenue received by the federal government as a result. He's opened up pemits for oil drilling, increasing domestic production and engineered a deal which sold off a portion of the US strategic reserves at a profit, when the price of a barrel of oil was high, and refilled the gap with lower priced petroleum, earning the government a huge profit. He led the effort to increase Social Security, the largest increase in decades, and for benefits that are now part of Medicare, including a cap on the cost of insulin for seniors and the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Are Americans Really Not Paying Attention, or Are They Being Deceived?
My confidence in the collective intelligence of the people of this country dropped like a stone in a well on Wednesday, November 6th. As an educator, it wasn't really very high prior to that, and through over thirty years of experience in education, I've seen almost nothing to convince me things are getting better in this regard, and plenty to conclude they are getting worse.
It is a fact, provable with all available evidence, that the Presidential administration of Joe Biden will end on January 20, 2025 as the single most accomplished and successful Presidency of the 21st century, and since that of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's. And that's saying a lot, when the accomplishments of the Clinton and Obama Administrations are part of that period of time.
But his achievements and accomplishments have largely been muted. After Jen Psaki left as his press secretary, unfortunately so did the ability of his administration to express its achievements and accomplishments to the media. Biden called few press conferences, and his administration didn't seem to make much of an effort to get itself and its accomplishments in front of a media they knew wasn't necessarily friendly to them. But that's what Presidents do. After seeing Pete Buttigieg serving as a surrogate to the Harris campaign, almost exclusively with Fox News, I have to wonder if he was misplaced in the Department of Transportation. He should have been in the role of spokesperson for the Biden administration and headed up their publicity efforts.
But I have to wonder, after these past four years, if there was anything they could have done to get more attention focused on his achievements.
I am certain that if an audit was made to determine how many days Trump got more media coverage than President Biden, since January 20, 2021, that number would be 1,389 days. Because that's how many days there are on the calendar since then, up until today, November 9, 2024. Even MSNBC covers him, even if it is in a negative light. Lawrence O'Donnell has one of the best grasps of just how evil and corrupt Trump is, but I'd be happy if someone paid me a dollar for every time his program started out with the words, "Donald Trump."
The corporately owned media in the United States is no longer part of the free press that is a necessary element for the protection of America's constitutional democracy. When one of the extremists on the FCC board whined about Kamala Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live being a violation of its free and equal time policy, I laughted out loud. Every network, every television station and radio station in America that is owned by one of the big corporations or media conglomerates, has blatantly violated "free and equal time" in giving Trump a 24 hour a day, four year long free commercial.
So when you look at the election results, it's really pretty remarkable that Harris did as well as she did. The media helped elect Trump in a big way, by giving him center stage, and by keeping Americans in the dark about the most accomplished President since the 1960's.
Fitting Talent and Ability to the Right Place
Franklin Roosevelt once joked that his main responsibility as President was being like a traffic cop, directing the right men to the right jobs. The legacy of his Presidency is preserved in history as perhaps the single greatest leader in American history, surpassing even Lincoln and Washington, was largely due to the high quality of those in his administration with whom he surrounded himself. Roosevelt chose some of the best men he could find, including several who were known to have disagreed with some of his initiatives and actions. He listened to them, which is why he is considered one of the best.
I'm not saying that Biden didn't pick good people or listen to his advisors. He also surrounded himself by some of the best, and listened to them. And when Jen Psaki was his press secretary, an articulate communicator who was direct and understandable, we heard and saw a lot. After she stepped down, not so much.
I think Pete Buttigieg might have been misplaced as Secretary of Transportation. I'm not saying he didn't do a good job there, he absolutely did. But after seeing him serve as a surrogate to Harris' campaign, almost exclusively on Fox News, baffling and frustrating their propagandists with the truth, I wonder how much better Biden's reputation would be if he'd been the spokesperson for the administration.
Biden's Place in History
The political perspective of the United States has changed. We have spent the better part of the last fifty years, going back to the Civil Rights Movement, convincing ourselves that our values were changing and we were making progress in becoming the first democracy to recognize and establish basic human rights over all of the cultural barriers to them. Race and religion continue to be divisive, as they are everywhere else in the world. Evangelicals, angry that their efforts to evangelize the population and "cure " its sins and ills through spiritual means, are turning to the power of politics to get the job done in an admission of their lack of faith in God, and are unleashing the bigotry formed by their misinterpretation and idolizing an ancient religious text.
By any past standard, Joe Biden should go down in history as one of the most achieved, euccessful Presidents in all American history. We've had some real losers in the White House, haven't we? The likes of men like John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and in more modern times, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Donald Trump make average look superior. President Biden should rank up there with JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman, Grover Cleveland, and come out better than Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt.
That's if the standards have not changed.
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